Philadelphia Daily News - June 16, 1980
3 Roses on Father’s Day
By Stan Hochman
The first television set Pete Rose ever saw had a seven-inch screen. You had to snuggle up real close in a dark room to see the fidgety images.
"Enos Slaughter," Rose said yesterday. "We were watching a game on TV and he ran to first on a walk.
"My dad said. That's the way to run to first... like yon can’t wait ta get to second. That's the right way to do it."
"He didn't tell me to do it, he just said that was the right way to play the game. I guess I was nine or 10 at the time."
From that day on, Pete Rose ran to first on a base on balls.
"I'm lucky." Rose said, glancing around the clubhouse. "My father was different than anybody else's in this whole room... except for maybe Bob Boone's.
"He didn’t tell me. He showed me!
"HE PLAYED SEMI-PRO football until he was 42 and I got to see him. He played for the Trolley Tavern, for Tresler Oil, for the old Cincinnati Bengals.
"I saw him break his hip on a kick-off and crawl down the field, trying to make the tackle.
"I saw him dislocate his elbow, saw the knot as big as a softball, saw him wrap a towel with some ice in it around it, go back in and make the game-saving tackle.
"I was right there, crying, because it hurt me just to see it.
"We all know the right way and how to tell somebody. But the best way is to show somebody."
Harry F. Rose died 10 years ago, on the front steps of his home when a blood clot clogged that huge heart of his.
"I often say, if my dad wasn’t like he was, he'd be living today," Rose said softly.
"He never missed work. And that's one reason he wasn't a super baseball player. He ran the tabulating department in the bank and his eyes went bad from working with all them small numbers.
"And that day, he went to work. He was so dedicated to the damn job. He didn’t feel well. But instead of going to the doctor at work, he tried to get home.
"GOT TO THE top step.
"He just didn’t want to inconvenience anybody at work. I don't think he ever missed a day.
"He was like clockwork. Off the bus at 10 after six, supper ready at a quarter after six.
"I don’t mind talking about him dying, because when I think of him I think of nothing but good things.
"I owe everything to my father. Look, I think I repaid him in a lot of ways. He got to go to 10 straight spring trainings.
"He got to see me in All-Star games, in a World Series. He got to see me win batting titles.
"I remember, with the Reds, the first thing I did when I got to the ball park was take the pass list and put down, 'Pete Rose, four tickets' whether he used them or not.
"When he came, he'd go crazy in the stands. He'd sit in one seat and if I struck out. he'd move to another seat.
"If I got a hit, he stayed put. Came into the clubhouse only one time I can remember, to get his picture taken with me and Hutch (Manager Fred Hutchinson) for a magazine story.
"After I'd been in the big league seven or eight years, the only time he'd wait for me after a game, he'd look at me and ask me, 'You feel alright?'
I’D SAY, "YEH, sure.' And he'd say 'Well, I don’t think you ran that last ball out.'
"And I'd go back and think about it and he was right. But he'd never stick around if I went 4-for-5 or 3-for-4.
"I'd had some good years and still the only time he was sure to be there was to tell me to keep running the ball out. Like I was embarrassing him if I wasn't running every ball out."
The lesson stuck, like a tattoo. Better than a tattoo, because it was under the skin.
And yesterday, on Father's Day, Pete Rose sat there, hoping the next time the clubhouse phone rang it would be Petey, calling from Cincinnati.
As fervent as Rose is about getting base hits, that fervor ranks a distal second to the way he feels about his 10-year-old son.
"He's on top," Rose said, gesturing a thumb toward the kid's picture taped eye-high in his locker.
"He's a lot better than I was at age 10. He has something you can't teach a kid, great instincts.
"He'll make a play on the field and he'll know where the other people are. A lot of kids get over-excited.
"The last time we were in Cincinnati, I went home after the game and we worked out. I threw him high flies and had him acting like a guy was tagging up.
"I MADE HIM stretch out his arm by moving further and further away. You know what made us quit? It got dark.
"I know how to do it without making him feel like he's in prison. I'm a perfectionist, but I have patience.
"He's what makes you play hard. You wanna see a sad expression or hear a kid talk like a grownup, you gotta be around when I say I'm getting old or thinking about retiring.
"He'll say, 'Hang in there... they’ll start falling in... you can do it'"
There is a bond there, stronger than steel, more precious than platinum.
"My father," Rose said, his eye misting, "the thing he emphasize was work hard and have fun. Give 110 percent.
"He always said you had to give 110 because 100 wasn’t enough. Suppose the guy playing against you gave 100, no one would win.
"And, if you were gonna be out there, you might as well win."
Phils Will Go with Status Quo
By Bill Conlin
LOS ANGELES – Keith Moreland launched a first-inning sacrifice fly. scored a run after stroking a double in the fifth and singled in the seventh. He also banged up his left knee running for the team bus, but that's another story.
The Phillies mauled the horribly inept Padres. 8-3. and the tough, young catcher from Texas had to figure it was one more time in the showcase with the clock rushing toward the midnight trading deadline.
Nothing that happened on the field yesterday had anything to do with the noticeable limp Moreland sported when he boarded the Phillies' flight to the Coast. He banged up a previously injured knee in a bizarre post-game accident, the kind that could only happen to the Phillies.
"You wont believe this." Moreland said, "but I got to the team bus and discovered I had forgot my boarding pass for the flight. I ran back down to the clubhouse to get it and on the way back I slipped and clobbered my knee. It's the same one I injured two years ago. Shoot, I'll be able to play."
MORELAND AND HIS rookie teammate, Lonnie Smith, came close to playing for the San Francisco Giants.
Paul Owens was considering a deal which would have sent Moreland, Smith and a couple of minor-league prospects to the Giants for first baseman Mike Ivie, righthander Ed Halicki and left-handed relief ace Gary Lavelle. That would have been Phase One of a three-club deal which would have left the Phillies with two starters and a reliever. After the deal with the Giants. Owens would have turned around and traded Ivie to Houston for righthander Joaquin Andujar.
But Ivie was put on the 15-day disabled list, suffering what the Giants said was "mental fatigue." Hey, you know baseball is a tough war when the combatants start coming down with shellshock.
"The deal died when Ivie went on the DL," said Owens, who was unable to make an 11th-hour trade in what he said was the tightest June 15 of his career. "He was the whole key, the only player Houston really wanted for Andujar. They wanted a right-handed-hitting power hitter who could play first base. Nothing else was close. I talked to 20 clubs the last two days and every GM I talked to predicted there wouldn't be a major trade. There's just a tremendous scarcity of quality pitching throughout the big leagues. I could have done something, but I would have just been replacing one problem with another."
SO THE DIE IS cast for the 1980 Phillies. They will win it or lose it with the pitching they have. Randy Lerch will face the Dodgers here tonight and Dickie Noles will come out of the bullpen tomorrow night, probably the toughest decision Dallas Green has made all season.
"Starting Dickie is hopefully a temporary thing," Green said after the sweep of a wretched Padres team which finished a 1-9 trip to the East Coast. "Dick Ruthven (shoulder injury) will miss one start foe sure, then we'll take another look at him from there."
Rookie righthander Bob Walk helped set up Green's rotation with six decent innings against a team which elected to rest Dave Winfield, who is 29 and the premier player on Jerry Coleman's Mission Valley Foreign Legion. Walk left in the sixth holding a 7-3 lead. He wasn’t dazzling but he was adequate. If a kid who was at Reading last summer has to have on-the-job training in the big leagues, it helps to have it against the likes of the Padres.
"Bob Walk is getting better with each outing." Green said. "This was a big day for him. He pitched decent and getting his first big league RBI never hurt anybody. He was a little more sure of himself out there today. Let's face it, he has to do the job. We don’t have anybody else. In spring training we figured he needed another year in the minors. We didn't feel he was quite ready. But he's always had big-league stuff. It's a matter of developing his poise and demeanor. We felt he would have to do that at the minor-league level, but it didn’t work out that way. He's up here, unfortunately or fortunately. I hope he learns the lessons we have to teach him well and quickly. We were going to win the ball game today and if I needed Dickie Noles I would have used him. I didn't need him. so hell start against the Dodgers."
THE PHILLIES capitalized on 9 hits, 8 walks, 3 stolen bases and 3 San Diego errors which led to four unearned runs. MVP for the Padres was Manager Jerry Coleman, who was ejected in the sixth inning. At least Coleman was able to escape from the glut of eye pollution.
It turns out Moreland and Smith were never in the showcase, despite appearances to the contrary. "Nobody ever asked us to play them," Green said. "Lonnie got a lot of playing time because Bake McBride had bad tonsil problems. I used Keith the same way I intended to use him all along. It's very important to get Bob Boone untracked offensively and he can't do that from the bench."
Owens sewed up the 1977 division title with his June 15th deal for McBride. He did the same thing in 1978, prying Dick Ruthven loose from Atlanta. But this year the pickings were slim.
"I'd feel bad if there was something out there and I missed it," The Pope said. "But even with the deal that fell through because of Ivie, I got mixed opinions from my people. As far as I was concerned, Andujar was the key and I couldn't get him without Ivie."
PHILUPS: Mike Schmidt drove in his 50th run with a sixth-inning sacrifice fly. Schmidt crashed his 20th homer Saturday night... Bake McBride returned to the starting lineup and was 2-for-5 with a pair of stolen bases... Phils became the third club to go over the million mark, but attendance is down 210,255 from last year's record pace... Randy Lerch vs. Jerry Reuss tonight.
7 Winners Over Weekend
There were seven winners over the weekend in the Daily News Home Run Payoff.
In the fourth inning of yesterday's Phillies-Padres game, Joe A. Gambone, John Petitt and H. Myers, all of Philadelphia, and J.W. Sheets of Bristol, all won four tickets to a Phillies game.
In Saturday's sixth inning, Raymond H. Weldie won $10 and tickets on a Larry Bowa single. Charlie Dietz of Levinown and Kathleen Irwin of Drexel Hill each won tickets.
So far the Daily News has paid out $5,230. To enter, send in the coupon that appears on Page 65.